


Without Care and Sorrow

by Dillian



Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Nazi Germany, Child Abduction, Child Abuse, Child Abuse Memories, Child Imprisonment, Concentration Camps, F/M, M/M, Memories of Child Molestation, Period-Typical Homophobia, Period-Typical Racism, Period-Typical Sexism, Torture
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-02
Updated: 2018-07-14
Packaged: 2019-06-01 09:20:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 4
Words: 8,142
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15140009
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dillian/pseuds/Dillian
Summary: Basic premise:  Tony met Loki in Berlin, during the 1920's, the wild days of the Weimar Republic.  They fell in love, lived together, until rise of Nazism made Germany unbearable, then they fled to America.  Loki comes to his lover's home broken, after witnessing a terrible event that brought back memories from his early childhood.  Now Tony must find a way to fix his beloved, and, hopefully, to save the children whose abduction caused his breakdown, as well.Addendum:  I feel like I've been trying to write the same story for years now.  I keep making my best  stab at it, and I keep falling short.  I don't know what makes me think I can do it now, especially coming off of a several-month hiatus the way I am.  And yet I do it...  Why?  This one speaks to me; I'm hoping if I can get it just right, it might speak to a few other people too.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> “Weißt du, wieviel Kinder frühe  
> Stehn aus ihren Bettchen auf,  
> Dass sie ohne Sorg' und Mühe  
> Fröhlich sind im Tageslauf?  
> Gott im Himmel hat an allen  
> Seine Lust, sein Wohlgefallen,  
> Kennt auch dich und hat dich lieb,  
> Kennt auch dich und hat dich lieb.”  
> \-- “Weißt du, wieviel Sternlein stehen,” Traditional
> 
> (Translation, from https://www.mamalisa.com/?t=es&p=454:  
> “Do you know how many children,  
> Get up early from their beds,  
> That are without care and sorrow,  
> Happy all day long?  
> God in Heaven plans for everyone,  
> Pleasure and delight,  
> Knows you too and loves you,  
> Knows you too and loves you.”)

**_The Avengers_** **,** **_Iron Man_** **, _Captain America_ , and ** **_Thor_** **, and all situations and characters thereof, belong strictly and solely to Marvel Comics.  This is a fan-work, meant for enjoyment only, and not for any material profit.**

It was Thor that noticed first.  I think that’s why Loki and I didn’t take it so seriously.  I remember it like it was yesterday, we were at the Schloss by the lake.  It was after dinner, and we were doing skits, we always did skits to amuse ourselves, back then.  The kids were in bed, Jane was… I don’t remember if she’d come out again yet, by the time Thor said it.  Maybe she was still telling a bedtime story? Maybe not. Details are the bane of a good story, let me just tell this the way I remember it:  It was Thor, Loki, and me, around the big fireplace. And for once, Thor’s friends weren’t there, no Volstagg, guzzling brandy like it was water, and eating up all the bon bons, no Fandral, hogging the conversation with all his endless stories about his conquests, and no Hogun, sitting there like he always did, looking at all of us like we were nothing.

And we were doing skits.  I remember Loki did that striptease thing that he used to do because he knew I loved it so much.  He’d gotten it from a cabaret, we went to one time, back in the late 20’s. We were there, and the M.C. did something like that, make M.C., of course, which is why it  mattered. And I looked like I enjoyed it too much I guess, and Loki was just sitting next to me, and he was burning. After that, that was always his skit, he’d do the striptease, _his_ striptease, and he’d throw me this look at some point or another, this look that said, “I’m more sexy than he was, aren’t I, Ton-nee?”  And he was, he always was.

I did my imitation of Hitler, I remember.  Standard fare, Charlie Chaplin with a goose-step, and that straight-arm salute.  I did that, and I did my imitation of the “Horst Wessel Lied.” My god, I can’t believe we ever thought that stuff was funny.  Just looking back, just trying to get back into that world, that innocent world… It can’t be done.

But I was telling you about Thor:  There we were, we were having fun. Real fun, the kind nobody has anymore.  “Making gay,” Thor used to call it. “You and Loki, you’re making gay?” Sometimes he’d mock us, for “making gay” too much, and other times he’d sit down and he’d try to get into the spirit.  He was never very good at it. Thor’s humor was… -- _Is_. -- Thor’s humor is slapstick, “Haw-haw, I killed a boar, haw-haw, you slipped on a banana peel, haw-haw, haw-haw, haw-haw.”  Anything involving words, or gestures… Loki could always say so much, with just one little gesture.

Where was I?  That’s right, the song.  The “Horst Wessel Lied:” “Raise the flag, the ranks tightly closed,” that’s how the real one goes.  Only I would always sing buttocks, “Raise the flag, our buttocks tightly closed,” and I’d do this thing, tighten my heinie as far as it would go, try to goose-step like that.  And then, “Clear the streets for the brown battalions.” Well, you can imagine what I did with that, can’t you? And Thor thought we were so intellectual! So, that was my parody, a lot of buttocks-jokes, and I think I mentioned Hitler once or twice.  And normally Thor appreciated it more than anybody, he’d be over there going, “Haw, haw, haw,” in his booming voice. This time though, he was just frowning, only I didn’t notice at first.

I think it was after I mentioned Hitler that he said something.  It wasn’t such a huge mention. “Millions are looking upon the house-painter, full of hope,” that’s what I usually said, because Hitler used to be a house-painter, at least that’s what people say.  Sometimes I’d call him Schickelgruber instead, which was supposedly his real name, sometimes I’d even say, “Well, if your name were Schickelgruber, wouldn’t you change it too?”

And Thor was watching this, at first he was haw-hawing along with the others, and at first I didn’t notice, when his face changed.  Then I’m coming to my finale, the banners, blah-blah-blah, “our forgotten comrades,” I forget how it goes… -- I don’t, not at all, but I want to forget, I want to wipe all of that out of my mind. -- “Our forgotten comrades,” and maybe another mention of Schickelgruber, or another “brown battalion,” or some such thing, and then I hear Thor’s voice.

“Maybe this is the wrong time to sing that, Stark,” he says.  And his face, and how he looked like he was sucking on a pickle.

Loki and I still thought that it would all blow over, see?  We all did, we would say to ourselves, “40% of the Reichstag seats?  That’s nothing!” Then, “A majority? But it’s so small.” And when he headed the coalition in ‘32, we told ourselves, “Well, the others will be a moderating influence,” and then, when he was named chancellor?  “Von Papen will moderate him…” Ha! Papen, the weakest of weak straws, trying to hold back the tidal wave? And we’d say, “Hindenberg will moderate him,” because he was Old Germany, see? Because we still thought the established order would protect us.

 _But Thor knew_.  He knew right from the start, and he said to us that night, “Perhaps this is not the right time, Stark,” with that look on his face.

And Loki looked at me, and he just laughed. “My brother, always so serious.”  And now so many things have happened, and I pray to god more things will happen, and that they’ll start being better things.

How do you live, when the whole world is going…  “To hell in a handcart,” that’s what Rhodey used to say.  “White people always think the world’s going to hell in a handcart, that’s because you don’t know what hell looks like.”  We know now, Rhodey. I know, and Loki… I hope he can come back from knowing, but maybe he can’t, maybe that’s one more burden I’m going to have to carry.

__________________________

“Someday I'll wish upon a star,  
And wake up where the clouds are far behind me.  
Where troubles melt like lemon drops,  
Way above the chimney tops, that's where you'll find me.  
Somewhere over the rainbow, bluebirds fly.  
Birds fly over the rainbow, why then, oh why can't I?”  
\-- Harold Arlen and E.Y. Harburg, “Over the Rainbow”

                                                                                                                                                                          July 1, 1939

Dear Pepper,  
Just wanted to check in.  Loki’s doing better, physically at least.  The doctors say that has to come first, and I’m trying to be patient.  You know better than anyone, Pep, patience is not my strong point. He’s gained weight, twenty pounds, since we got out of that hellhole.  Jarvis’ good cooking. Thank you, by the way, for those strawberries you sent.

Remember the strawberries I gave you that time, Pep?  I must have been… God, was I even twenty at that point?  That was when we were still pretending we were boyfriend and girlfriend, only, me being me, I wasn’t doing a very good job of it.  And I brought you the berries, and you, you wouldn’t speak to me for three days. _Deservedly_ , Pepper.  All the times you got angry at me, I always deserved it completely.  Every single time.

How’s Happy doing?  He’s still boxing to keep the weight down, I hope?  Still training young kids on the side? He’s the kind of man you always needed, Pep, safe, stable ~~, just a little bit stupid~~.  He’s a good man, and that’s what you deserve, Pepper, you were always too good for me.  Any signs of nippers yet? But I know you’re happy working for Obie, aren’t you? You probably want to put off having kids for a while.

Well, things are pretty uneventful here (aside from Loki’s continuing recovery).   ~~Tell Obie he can expect a visit from me any day now.  I have all sorts of ideas for new projects, that I got when I was in Germany.  What do you think he’d say to some new-model airplanes? The wars of the future are going to be won in the air~~.

I think I’d better hold off on going back to work for awhile.   ~~Loki still needs a lot of nursing~~.  There are still some things I want to get done.  I hope the summer is going well for you. You know it’s already getting too hot here in Pacific Palisades?  And here it’s barely July! Well, it’s good for Loki. He sits out in the sunshine all afternoon every day, which he needs, get plenty of Vitamin D.

I’d better wind this up now, and try to catch today’s mail.  More later, my beautiful Pepper, from your best friend, Tony Stark.


	2. Chapter 2

When countries change, like Germany’s changed, it’s important that there be someone to bear witness.  I used to think that I would be that person, if and when it happened. I know that I wasn’t. Life doesn’t stop, see.  You can see what’s happening, you can even find the words to describe it. At the same time, you have to lead your normal life, and things kept coming at us, just little things sometimes, there was the time I broke my wrist, and there were Thor and Jane’s kids, and sometimes we had to watch them for them.  There was the time Frigga got sick, that was right around the same time as the Reichstag fire, seemed like we went to bed in a constitutional democracy one night, and we woke up in a dictatorship the next morning, but in reality it was a couple weeks.

Back then, back when things were changing, I didn’t have time to keep track.  And here’s another thing: What about rescuing people? Sometimes you’ll read these stories:  This person concealed someone in their attic, that one kept three kids in a hidden room, and smuggled them out of Germany, and so on and so forth.  What kind of people do those things? What kind of heroism must it take, to keep up with your everyday life, and still have time to do things that are so important?

I was never that man.  No time away from life to write down what was happening, and I was never able to break my concentration with my own worries, in order to do something heroic.  And now I’m here in California. Suddenly I have all the time in the world, Loki doesn’t take very much time anymore. I’d like to be able to do something heroic now, but I’m blocked, I can’t find the kids, but at least, I can write down what I saw, when I was in Germany.

The kids:  Here’s a big one.  Those two little kids, who could be so many kids.  All over Germany, they were being taken, Jewish kids, and Gypsy kids, kids with handicaps, who were considered unfit to live, and I don’t know how many others.  Probably they’re still being taken, I don’t know, maybe I’m just not there to see it anymore. But in our lives, it was justs the one pair of them, the ones we knew, the Maximoffs.

Maximoff wasn’t his real name.  He was a jeweler, small shop off the Leipziger Platz, not far from Wertheim’s.  Everybody used to go there. Back in the decadent years, it was quite a fad, all the businessmen were buying slave bracelets for their poopsies.  You used to go to the cabarets, and you’d see them. -- Not the businessmen, you understand, who half the time they couldn’t get away, or else they were scared to be seen in public.  The bracelets I mean, though, you’d see the bracelets. Beauties of indeterminate sex, or no sex, loose blouses, showing white necks, sleeves rolled up, and those bracelets, worn inside-out, so you could almost make out whose name was engraved on the inside.  And Loki would see them, and he wanted one of those bracelets. “Buy me one, Ton-nee,” he’d say, and we’d go to Maximoff’s. I can’t remember how many times we’d go, and then he’d be too scared to actually buy the bracelet.

Loki, scared!  He’d play it off.  “Oh, but they’re so vulgar, Ton-nee, oh, it’s too crowded in there, oh, I saw your bank balance this morning, maybe next month.”  

“Maybe next month, Ton-nee,” he said that over and over, so many times.  And we’d be there, maybe we’d be inside the shop, or maybe we didn’t get past the store window.  That glittering store window: Gold, and diamonds, Art Deco styling, brittle and slightly false, like the beauties who would wear all those things.

The kids were always there.  Every time we would visit, sometimes you could even see them through the window.  To tell the truth, they were kind of little brats. The boy was never still. You’d see him, white-blond head, and you’d wonder, “How isn’t he breaking every single thing in here?”  One time he did break something. A showcase, that was, shattered it into a million pieces, and some of them landed on our feet. And the noise of it! Crash-crash, break-break-break!  And Papa’s voice, “Pieter! Come back here, Pieter!”

Girl was a piece of work too, always looking at you with those knowing eyes, and that mean little smile.  But they were just kids. Who knows where they are now, and who knows what’s happening to them? Things like that shouldn’t happen to kids.

Kristallnacht, that’s what they called that night.  Means night of broken glass, or some such, I don’t know.  How many years was I in Germany? Idioms still elude me. That happened a year ago, not exactly sure when.  It was like things instantaneously changed, we’d talked about the changes that were coming, but there’s all the difference in the world between talking about things, and when you actually see them.  This was a sudden, huge, world-altering change. And afterward, Thor was still saying, “Oh, this has nothing to do with us, Stark, oh, calm down, calm down,” but I shouldn’t criticize. Weren’t we all like that, for so many years?

The kids:  One thing at a time, that’s the only way I can tell this story, and right now I’m talking about the kids.  And I’m talking about Maximoff’s, which still had that raffish look about it, after, what, five years of Aryanization?  Or almost six?

The showcases in the store were all half empty by then, and what was there?  “There’s no call for fine workmanship anymore, Herr Stark,” old Maximoff would tell me, “kein ruf für gute verarbeitung,” and he’d tssk-tssk-tssk, shake his white head.  “These people,” and he’d shrug, an eloquent, Jewish shrug.

The kids would be there, still there, even then.  That says it all to me, he still kept them there, with everything that was happening.  He saw the signs, we all did, but here’s the thing: None of us really believed.

One night in late October, that’s when it happened, and we must have known it was going to happen, at some level, why else were we out there?  Nothing to do out anymore, by then. Whole town was infested with Nazis, not the sophisticated ones they’ll bring out for public appearances, but the worst kinds of  thugs and brutes. Troglodytes, yahoos, beefy men, broken noses, shoulders like battering-rams. The Master Race, spitting on the floor, fists always at-ready.

We _never_ got hurt by any of them.  Thor used to say, “Well, you won’t, Stark, they won’t hurt you, they know you’re _my_ family.”  Oh, Thor. there’s going to come a time when that won’t matter.  Who will help you then, Thor, you, and Odin, and Frigga, who’s so delicate after her illness?  Who will be left to help, after all of us escape who can, and the rest of us are… I don’t want to say it.

We didn’t get hurt, because we didn’t risk it, we didn’t go out.  “It’s so comfortable here at home, Ton-nee, oh, why should we go out?” Loki would say.  And he took up hobbies. Cooking: “Here, come taste my sauce, come try this omelet,” etcetera.  And he learned to play the violin: Scalded-cat sounds, and, “You know what song that is, don’t you, Ton-nee?”  And I’d nod, wait for him to tell me.

Our apartment was so comfortable, by the time it all came to an end.  I can’t think about all the carpets, and the artworks on the walls, and the bibelots, cluttering every single shelf in there.  Books: All sorts of things the Nazis would have burned, wrapped in covers that hid the titles, like that would protect them… Like it would protect us.  And the clothing, all sorts of things Loki would never wear out in public during the decadent years, now he wore them in private, for me. He’d give me fashion shows.  Our friends would give us the clothing, right before they emigrated: “Here, take this robe, this scarf, this stole. Here, take this hat, isn’t it a beauty, isn’t it a darb, as you Americans would say it,” which we hadn’t, not for about a hundred years, even at that point.  “Here, take these lovely shoes,” and the next night there Loki would be, hobbling about in patent-leather, turning this way and that, to show off the paste buckles. All those things, that they had to leave, and we left them too, when we finally ran away. All so much garbage now, ready for the waste-bin of history.  In the end, what matters, except the people?

I’m getting off-track.  We were out that night, in late October, the night of Kristallnacht.  And we were walking, maybe we were going to dinner with Thor and Jane, and that’s why we were out.  Only why wouldn’t we have taken the car?

Doesn’t matter why we were out.  We were, that’s the part that matters.  And I suppose the main part of the action must have taken place in the slums, but old Maximoff had his store, so there was action going on there too.  And a brick, that’s what you heard first. Funny, I wouldn’t have thought there was any glass left to be broken, all his windows were plywood by that point.  But there was, I remember the crashing, and the voice, “Raus! Juden Raus, auf nach Palästina!”

 _Jews, get out, go back to Palestine_.  Men, being hustled into the streets.  So many men, in what was not a Jewish neighborhood.  I saw old Maximoff, in between two Nazi thugs, and then he went down.  I saw something wet on the pavement, that I thought was blood, and I remember wanting to hide Loki’s face.  I remember I didn’t dare hide his face, we already knew what the Nazis thought of men like us. I remember thinking, “Well, he’ll look away,” but I don’t know if he did.  And I remember hearing voices, that sounded like children’s voices, but I don’t remember seeing the Maximoff kids at all.

I remember Loki said he did see them, with two Nazis, who were hustling them away.  He saw somebody, he said, and armbands, he said something about armbands. Two little kids, with those brutes, that little redheaded girl, and her white-blond brother.

Two little kids out of millions of kids, thousands, anyway, who knows how many there were?  That’s what gets to me most, is the numbers, but for Loki, it was always about the Maximoffs, and he worried over them, and worried over them.  Where were they, Tony? -- Not Ton-nee, anymore, that caressing voice of his was gone, after that night. -- Where were the children, the little Maximoffs, and he exhausted every resource he had, trying to find them.  Could Thor find them, and then he tried Odin. And the fights! Loki never did get along with his father, but the fights they had over that!

Well, it wasn’t all about that.  There were other things, but this isn’t the time for me to tell about them.  Maybe later, right now I have a story to finish.

Where were the little Maximoffs, “Tony, you have to help me find them,” and we looked, oh god, we looked everywhere.  Were they in detention, but they weren’t in detention, at least there weren’t any records. And were they with their family maybe?  But, did the Maximoffs even have family in Berlin? Did they have anybody? And we couldn’t find any trace of them, and Loki kept getting thinner and thinner, like he just wouldn’t eat.  And then he wouldn’t talk to me, and then he wouldn’t get out of bed.

That was when I decided that we had to leave, but I didn’t say anything about it, I didn’t get the chance.  At first, it was just plans. My passport was in order, and so was Loki’s, thank god he was from a cosmopolitan family.  I started turning things into money, not obvious things like the bibelots, but little things, rings, cufflinks, a pearl shirt-stud, one time I remember.  And I started winding things up, saying a few good-byes, but not to the Von Borsens, at that point I didn’t want to give anything away. I was afraid of who else might hear it from them, Thor’s a good man, but he isn’t very bright.  He must have intuited it somehow, though. One day right before I was ready to leave, he came to us, said he had word about the Maximoffs.

“They are fine, brother!”  His hearty voice, “They’re fine, they are with family, they are in Poland…”  There was the lie, right there:

Poland?  Everybody knew no Jews could get in.  That was all over the news, the refugee camps on the border, stories about people shuttled back and forth.  Nazi headlines: “The Polish Government won’t accept its rightful responsibility!” Read between the lines, people dying, suffering, sick, in those miserable camps.  But Loki hadn’t been reading the newspapers lately, maybe he believed it. That was obviously Thor’s hope, was that he would believe it.

And my hope was just that we could get out of there.  Maybe we’d come back for the children, I told myself, maybe, if we could just find out where they were.  Maybe we could save them, I told myself, but I think that I knew even then, it was a lie. How do you find two children, in a maelstrom of thousands of children, millions of them, even?  How do you rescue two, out of so many, and when you can’t even go safely into the country that’s destroying them?

But, how do you get any sleep, knowing they’re still being held somewhere?   ~~I think this is going to drive me as insane as Loki, before it’s all over.~~

__________________________

  
“Wishing will make it so,  
Just keep on wishing and care will go.  
Dreamers tell us dreams come true,  
It's no mistake.  
And wishes are the dreams we dream  
When we're awake.

The curtain of night will part,  
If you are certain within your heart.  
So if you wish long enough wish strong enough  
You will come to know,  
Wishing will make it so”  
\-- Glenn Miller, “Wishing (Will Make it So)”

                                                                                                                                                                      July 8, 1939

Dear Pepper,  
Sending you some pictures.  Aren’t Thor’s kids getting big?  It’s crazy how fast kids grow at that age.  So, any news from you on the kid-front? ~~Happy would make such a good dad, he’s practically a kid himself.~~  I’m kidding, you know it, I understand you’re wedded to your job.

Well, nothing but good news on this end.  Loki’s still gaining weight, he looks ~~practically like he did before this whole thing started~~ pretty darn good, as you’ll see, if we can ever get you down here for a visit.  Tell Obie he can’t keep your nose to the grindstone all the time, even the Best Girl Friday in the World needs some time off, once in a blue moon.

By the way, we are still doing business in Germany?  StarkCo, I mean? I know that was Pop’s big thing, I’ll never forget how he’d go on and on to us about how Germany was so much more forward-looking than America, and how he’d sold so-and-so many airplanes, just this month alone, and how they wanted all these improvements.  That was back during the last War. We’re still doing that, aren’t we? No squeamishness, I’m sure, that wouldn’t be Obie’s style.

Tell him I need to talk to him, before he shoots off his next letter to whoever it is that heads up the Luftwaffe these days.  Tell him I have some questions I need answered, tell him to call person-to-person, any time he’s free. I need to talk to him, there’s some things I have to find out, for my own sake, as well as Loki’s.

Never mind, don’t worry about it, it’s probably

Please tell him, Pepper.  You can now feel very proud, you got a “please,” out  of Tony Stark. That puts you in a minority of about one in the whole world, don’t let it go to your head.  And I’ll send an “I love you,” you know I do, right Pep? And I always have.

As always, your best friend, Tony.


	3. Chapter 3

I think one of the things that brought Loki and me together was that we’d both had problems with our ~~parents~~ fathers.  Loki’s dad?  Big, gruff guy.  Typical Prussian…  I actually like Odin, he’s hard to get to know, but he’s got aristocratic manners, if you know what I mean.  Noblesse oblige, he puts himself out to be charming. I’m sure he thinks I’m inferior as all hell, to him and to his so-important family, that can trace its lineage back to I don’t know who.  I’m just low-born American scum to him, low-born, a prole, etcetera, etcetera, but you would never know it by talking to him.

Odin’s all right, but he was entirely the wrong man to raise Loki.  He was stern, see, and Loki’s always been so sensitive. I remember how he always used to turn into a boy around his father.  At home? Or when we were out? Good memories, Loki was wry, demanding, a little bit greedy. He used to flirt with everybody, well, me, of course, but also everyone else we would meet when we were out together.  I’ve seen him turn young lovers away from their girlfriends with just a look. Those sidelong green glances he used to give, and the little half-smiles.

~~Someday Loki will be like that again, I know he will.  Sometimes the only thing that keeps me going is my hope that I’ll see him like that again, that I’ll be reunited with the Loki I love so much.~~

No.  I love Loki.  Even like he is now, I love him.  When he apologizes, and then a minute later he’s berating me, for something I didn’t do.  But I know I love him, here’s how: Some people, they do something to you, and you’re done with them.  Old Texas saying, fool me once shame on you, fool me twice… Loki could fool me over and over, he did fool me, until I got used to the way he is now, now there’s no surprises, because I always expect the worst.  But deep down, I know I’m never going to stop caring for him. He’s got a place in my heart, see? A permanent place, and that’s what love is.

I digress.  I was talking about Odin.  I was talking about my own father too.  Some men are lucky, there’s a connection between them and their fathers, Loki and I weren’t like that.  And it takes a toll on a man when it’s that way. Because you have to be yourself, see. Beyond a certain point, one has to be himself, or else lay down and die, but what if you know your father despises who you really are?  What if you’re a man of words, like Loki, and he wants you to be a man of action? What if you’re a man like me, ideas, ideas, ideas, but it’s so hard to stick to any of them, and your father’s stuck to the same thing his entire life?

And I think that I saw that in Loki, from the very time that I met him.  I think it showed in some way, that here was a man like me, deep-down he felt inferior, even though he was so…

It tears me up, talking about how it was when I first met Loki.  Men don’t cry, but I’m crying right now, and there are tear-stains on some of the other pages of this damn journal.  I remember the first time that I even saw Loki. Funny thing, it wasn’t at a cabaret, even though we went to so many of them together, later on.  But this was at a party Odin was giving. Business party, Von Borsen Munitions, foreign investors, negotiations, etcetera, etcetera. I was there in my capacity as a buyer for StarkCo, a role that I always found so…  Constricting? Is that the right word? I don’t know, I wanted to be in planning, that’s what I’m trying to say. But Father was clear, “Work your way up, do you think I started at the top?” And there I was, at that boring, boring party.

Too much champagne.  You know how those dos are, the waiters keep coming around with their trays.  And, “Would you like another canape, sir/ another bite of caviar/ another glass of champagne?”  I was lapping up all of it. -- Except the caviar, caviar stinks. -- Rounds of bread with things on them, smoked fish, and cheese, and I don’t remember what all.  And glasses of wine, one after another, enough wine to float the Titanic.

And when I saw Loki, at first I didn’t believe what I was seeing.  I thought it was the champagne. Men like me, we don’t flirt, see? We don’t dare, it tells too much about us, too much that we want to keep hidden.  Later on, I knew that’s just how Loki was, but that first time?

His eyes, brilliant green, cat’s eyes.  And that smile of his, and the way it seemed like it was only for me.  And I thought I was drunk, I thought I was mistaken, and I remember I walked away.  First girl I saw, she was the most horrible mess, frumpy white debutante’s dress, a Deanna Durbin dress, but this was no ingenue, the girl was fat, and she had pimples.  But she was in my way, and when I saw her, I asked her to dance, and she said yes.

Loki’s words to me, later that night, when we were together:  When we were in that cheap room of his, at that awful boarding house, that he always said he loved, because nobody knew him there.  When we were in bed, all our appetites sated, and it was time for conversation.

“Is that your type,” he said, “do you love fat little girls, Ton-nee?”

And I didn’t say it was because I’d been nervous, I would never have said that to anyone, back then (more of Father’s conditioning).  “What’s your type, Loki?” I said instead.

“Oh, my type is anyone who wants me,” he said immediately.  It wasn’t true, you know. Loki was always, I don’t know how to say it, more available than I was?  He gave himself to more people than he should have, male and female, but it wasn’t because he was attracted to them.  That was some of Odin’s conditioning. Because he’d looked into his father’s eyes too many times, and seen that he wasn’t good enough for him, now he had to look into everyone else’s eyes, and see the approval there.

“I don’t have a type,” Loki told me that night.  “I just like the act.” After that he turned the conversation, and it was sex-sex-sex, for the rest of the night.  “You’re a catamite,” I remember he said to me, meaning that I prefer the submissive over the dominant position in bed.  “I like that, Ton-nee,” he said, and I was his forever with those words. Loki’s approval is rare, but no one can resist it, I truly believe that.

I remember waking up with him the next morning.  I remember his hair… Funny memory. He would wear it lacquered, when we were at the cabarets, an extreme kind of a hairstyle, sort of like Louise Brooks wore.  Naturally that wouldn’t go with his family though, and when we were with the Von Borsens, he substituted hair oil. I remember his hair, so oily that it was like a curtain, how it flopped where it wasn’t supposed to go.  Little strings separating off from the main piece of it, falling into his eyes. I remember him catching my gaze, immediately going into his flirtatious routine: “Do you love my hair, Ton-nee,” and he was down on the bed with me, one hand on my cheek, while he looked at me from under his long eyelashes.  “How much do you love it, tell me,” he said, “or better yet, _show_ me.”

The problem with that nasty little boarding house, was no bathroom, of course.  No proper one, anyway, I think there was one toilet, for the entire building. If you wanted a bath, you had to go get a tub from down in the scullery, half the time you had to boil the water yourself, because the landlady wasn’t around.  Loki, who was used to the Von Borsen house, with a bathroom for every member of the family, naturally felt dirty. Not that he’d show it, oh no, never, one of the things he’d learned from his father.

Thus the flirtatious routine:  “Do you like my hair, how much do you like it, show me, Ton-nee.”  The sex was just as good, that morning, I remember, but this time it left a bad feeling, like there was a barrier between us.

There wasn’t, of course.  No, there was. It was on his side, and it was on my side, and it was made up of all the lies we would tell each other… that we were telling ourselves.  Because both of us were trying so hard to be the men our fathers wanted us to be, and we both knew we were failing. ~~When I have Loki back~~   ~~If I get him back~~  No, I have him right now.  I have him, because I know Loki still loves me, even though he can’t show it like he used to.  I’m trying not to lie to him anymore, it’s better for me, and I hope it’s better for him too. ~~Someday…~~

_Live in the present, Stark, that’s all you ever really have, is just the present moment.  You must behave as is right for you. The lying was hurting_ _ me _ _, that’s enough to matter right there.  I’m done with it, not going to say any more._

__________________________

~~“Vor der Kaserne~~  
~~Vor dem grossen Tor~~  
~~Stand eine Laterne~~  
~~Und steht sie noch davor~~  
~~So woll'n wir uns da wieder seh'n~~  
~~Bei der Laterne wollen wir steh'n~~  
~~Wie einst Lili Marleen.”  
\-- “~~ ~~Lili Marleen,~~ ~~”~~ ~~by Hans Leip~~

~~(Translation, from~~ ~~https://lyricstranslate.com/en/lili-marleen-lili-marlene.html~~ ~~:~~  
~~“~~ ~~Right next to the barracks by the main gate,~~  
~~There stood a lantern and stands there up to date.~~  
~~We're going to meet there again,~~  
~~Next to the lantern we will remain,~~  
~~Like then, Lili Marlene,  
~~~~Like then, Lili Marlene.~~ ~~”~~ ~~)~~

                                                                                                                                                                          ~~July 3, 1939~~

~~Dear Loki,  
I’ll never forget the first time I saw you naked.  The thing that surprised me most was how huge you were.  On a man who was so slim, overall… The other thing was the color.  You were so pale, new ivory, or like a willow-wand, freshly peeled. And there was your member, deep-red, in its nest of hair.~~

~~I’m not sleeping with other men, Loki, but I’ll admit, I’ve been tempted.  I could never do it, though, it would feel like a betrayal… All those times that you used to cheat on me back in Berlin, you’d think it would seem like nothing.  But even the times when I gratify myself the way boys do, it still feels wrong to me.~~

~~I do it, though, several times a week, sometimes over and over again, in a single night.  It helps me sleep, I close my eyes, and… You know what fantasies are, Loki, and these come from my boyhood.  It feels like a betrayal that I’m not at least thinking about you when I do it, but if I did, I think I’d go crazy.  And so I use the same old fantasies, and sometimes they don’t even bring me to satisfaction, but that’s all right, after them, I can go to sleep.~~

~~I miss you, Loki.  I miss you so much.~~


	4. Chapter 4

So nice, last night, seeing that somebody besides me is concerned about the Jews in Germany.  Not just Jews, Von Doom

~~Ugly history between me and Von Doom, a history going back to when I was young.  I should probably write about it, probably then I would understand myself better~~.  Probably fish would fly, if you gave them wings.  I’m Tony Stark, I don’t need to understand myself, I just need to do what’s got to be done.  First of all, that means taking care of Loki, and second of all?

Second of all, I guess, is the Jews in Germany, and one pair of Jews in particular, those damned elusive Maximoff children, that Loki can’t seem to stop fretting about.

This was why I was at the party, and it was one of those horrible Hollywood parties, the kind I went to so many of, back when I was a kid.  It was a queer party, in other words, a party for sissies, Green Carnation types, in other words, men and women ~~much like myself~~ like Von Doom.

Nasty memories:  Madame… What was her name?  I could remember it if I tried, but I don’t want to try.  She had what she used to call a “salon,” I remember thrilling, just at the word, it always seemed so evocative.  Then it only took a few of her “salons,” after that all the luster was off. Opium smoke, and women with short hair, and men in kimonos.  Men who looked disarmingly like women, sly hands that touched me more than a few times, before I learned to be careful. I could write about those parties; I could write about what always happened after we left them, nights in Victor’s bedroom, his hands, and his tongue, and his teeth, so sharp.  Nothing I want to say about those parties. Suffice it to say, I was fifteen years old, I thought I knew the world, at a time when just the word “salon” was still enough to thrill me, much less the thought of what my body could do to a man twice my age.

Von Doom looks very old these days.  Good. Serves him right. But I will say, he understands what’s going on in the world, and if we join the war that’s coming, he’ll be on the right side.  Him and Steve Rogers, who is, shall I say, a much more palatable type?

I could end Mr. Rogers’ career so easily, just one word about where he was last night.  This is the position of trust all of us put each other in, whenever we go out in public these days, whenever we show who we really are.  Different, when I was a kid, back then things were much more open. And of course it’s always mattered what part of the movie industry you’re in.  Madame was a director. “Experimental films, naturally,” she’d say, and uggh, the red lipstick caked on that cigarette holder that she never seemed to put down.   ~~Wonder if she made love with that thing still clenched between those huge horse-teeth.  Doubtful; lesbians need to keep their mouths free.~~

...Where was I?  The movie industry, that’s right.  Madame made what were called “prestige films,” which meant they didn’t have to make any money.  And Von Doom had his own little niche carved out, he played decadent Europeans. Lavender parties would have just been that more decadence, whereas Rogers is more the Gary Cooper type.  Can you imagine Coop at one of those parties? Imagine what that would do to him: _Mr. Smith Goes to Washington_ , starring, the man who was playing kissy-face last night, with Cole Porter, and a Mexican busboy from the Brown Derby.  And Steve Rogers, similarly. He’s got a black partner, Rogers has, a very nice man, a combat veteran from the Great War

Note to self:   _Stark, burn these pages._  Keep the rest of this ridiculous journal if you have to, although god alone knows why, it doesn’t seem to have served you much use so far.  Burn these pages, if you care anything about anyone besides yourself and your precious _Loki_.  Men get lynched, even here in California, and Sam Wilson is a good man.

To be fair, Rogers is a good man too, albeit he’s pretty stuffy.  All that stuff about America, Home of the Free, and Home of the Brave, and so proudly she waves, and this and that, like he really believes all of it.  What rock has he been hiding under for the past thirty years if he does believe that crap? Probably came from some farm town, with no race problem, and annual Fourth of July picnics.  But I digress.

The good news is, there’s someone here in this benighted country, who’s at least thinking about our responsibility to the rest of the world.  Maybe it’s just a few faggots in Hollywood, but… It can’t be just us, can it? Certainly there must be other people in the country who are thinking about the same things?  Maybe they aren’t, hell, we turned that refugee ship away just last month, didn’t we? What’s to become of those people? Back to Germany they go, that’s what. If it were me, I’d jump off the goddamn ship into the water, and get eaten by sharks, before I’d go back.

_Good news, Stark:  Focus on the good news_.

Von Doom’s a Gypsy, that’s the only reason he cares about this.  Selfish bastard like him, there’s no way he would care, unless it affected him directly.  But the Nazis are rounding Gypsies up too, and so there he was. They’re taking some other groups, I know.  Don’t remember all the details.

_Jews, and Gypsies, foreigners, and the “feeble-minded,” whatever that even means.  Prisons, I wonder how many new ones they’ve had to build already, so far? I wonder where they’ll stop, too.  Homosexuals? That’s bound to come soon enough, everyone hates us. And after us? I don’t know. Maybe Hitler won’t stop until everyone’s in prison, and it’s just him and his bully-boys, keeping all of Germany, as their private fiefdom.  ...Or all of Europe… All of the world..._

Never mind.  At any rate, Von Doom’s on the right side, albeit for his own reasons.  He and I are allies now, which is fine with me, as long as I don’t have to talk much with him.

Uggh, him, last night…  He had a boy with him. Skinny kid, Eastern European-looking.  Kris, he called himself. Uggh, Von Doom’s hand, like iron, on the kid’s shoulder, and his fingers so tight.  I remember how those fingers used to feel, I remember you could never let on with even a gesture that you weren’t having a wonderful time, the most perfect time you’d ever had in your entire life, or you’d pay for it afterward.  I remember the whips… Von Doom’s bedroom, like a dungeon, and the bed, green velvet covers on it, so your blood didn’t show. I wonder if he takes poor little Kris on that bed, and if my bloodstains are still on there.

_God, you’re morbid, Stark!_

Von Doom and I are allies; politics certainly does make strange bedfellows.  And Rogers too, he’s a good man, stuffy though he may be. And Sam Wilson, who’s smart as a whip; he’d be a professor if he were in Europe…  In the old Europe, I mean, not this new one, where Naziism looms like a cloud.

And Von Doom said last night, “How much money can you give to the cause, Stark?”  And I swallowed down my bile, as well as the urge to hit him, right in his arrogant face.  “Money,” he said again, “I remember your family is so wealthy.” I pulled out my wallet and gave him…  Not as much as I could have, certainly. I had maybe fifty in my wallet, gave him twenty or so. Later on when it was Rogers and Wilson and me, I gave them the rest of it.

Something Wilson said to me last night:  “I fought in the last war, Tony,” he said, “I’m ready to fight in the next one too.  Wherever they need me,” he said. Black men didn’t see much combat in the Great War, as I remember.  They were cooks, janitors, things like that, the same as they are in civilian society. But there was Wilson, not just ready, but eager, to do whatever he could.  And there was Rogers, equally as eager.

“I was 4-F during the First War,” he told me.  “I’ve done a lot of physical training since then, I think I can pass the physical.”

Were they looking at me?  Were they thinking, “Why doesn’t he promise to fight as well?”  Were they, or was it my imagination, my guilt? I went home, and I was saying to myself, “I can’t fight, I have to take care of Loki,” and all the while I knew that was an excuse, Jarvis can do everything for him that I do.   _But if Loki wakes up in the middle of the night, and it’s just Jarvis there, what then?  And when he gets into a period of melancholia, and he can’t get out of it, how will Jarvis know what to say?  And Jarvis never even knew the Maximoff kids. He can keep the money flowing to help find them, sure, but where’s the personal touch?_

Money is something, and lord knows, I have plenty of that.  “Put me down for a hundred a month,” I told Rogers ( _not_ Von Doom) before I left.

Fellow looked at me, and he nodded.  “That’s very generous, Tony.” _And there was nothing behind his eyes that said, “Coward, throwing money at the problem, because you’re afraid to fight.”  That was my imagination… Not even imagination, that was my guilt. I’m doing all I can… all anyone could ask of me._

__________________________

“If I invite a boy some night  
To dine on my fine finnan haddie,  
I just adore his asking for more  
But my heart belongs to Daddy.

Yes, my heart belongs to Daddy  
So I simply couldn't be bad,  
Yes, my heart belongs to Daddy,  
Da da da, da da da, da da dad.

So I want to warn you, laddie,  
Though I think you're perfectly swell,  
That my heart belongs to Daddy  
'Cause my Daddy he treats it so well.”  
\-- Cole Porter, “My Heart Belongs to Daddy”

                                                                                                                                                               July 8, 1939

Dear Pepper,  
Beautiful, it’s been too long.  Someday soon I’m coming up to San Jose.  I’ll take you out for the best dinner the Bay Area has to offer, and I’ll completely put Happy’s nose out of joint.  You’re the one that got away, remember? I should have married you, back when I still had the chance.

Teasing, sorry.  You mustn’t mind me, my mouth always did get the better of me.  Say, schedule a conference for me with Obie, will you? I’ve got some things I need to say to him about the future of the company.  We’re going to have to restructure our product line, Pep. Another war is coming, maybe not this year, maybe not next year, but it’s coming, and this one is going to be fought in the air.

We need to be on a wartime footing.  No more passenger airlines; if we don’t put ourselves on a combat footing, the time’s coming when the government’s going to do it for us.  Better to be prepared.

Give me a call, let me know when the meeting’s going to be, Pep.  I’ll clear my schedule. That’s all for now from me, your loving Tony-kins.  Tell Hap and the kids I say hi.

\-- Tony


End file.
